Your RotJ sounds a lot like the original plan for RotJ + original ST from the 80’s. Vader would die, the emperor would become the new bad guy, and Luke’s sister would be the new protagonist.

I’m not so much a fan of it but they also didn’t put much thought into it so there’s not much to ignore.

the link above about what the prequels should have required does a great job of describing what needed to happen to fit with OT canon. The ones that stuck out most to me is that the Empire felt older but is literally the same age as Luke. And the whole celibate monk angle for the Jedi feels like a very late development.

Well, hyperspace tracking only became a thing in TLJ. I think that’d make RO and ANH a few days apart. Not only that, but Vader never knew if Leia was on board or not.

Likely did since it’s a consular ship, from the registry they know the planet and he’s looking for the ambassador. Which then raises the question of why use such a recognizable ship for a covert mission. Actually, it brings me to mind the Snowden debacle. The US forced down a consulate aircraft under suspicion that Snowden was onboard and should have been a bigger international incident than it was. You simply don’t do this. Given that they were operating under some of the last traditions of the Old Republic, perhaps it was a bluff they thought they could pull off.

Those ideas sound interesting. I’ve been outlining on my own to see how I think the PT and ST should have gone. I think I might try writing them out at around the same complexity as the original Star Wars novelization. Try to fit the mood, themes, etc.

What you’re trying to do sounds like that Dark Horse comic “The Star Wars” which was an adaptation of the very early Lucas Whills script. I haven’t read how they adapted it but I have read all of the Lucas drafts and they’re indescribably terrible. So much of Star Wars is carried by the style, not just the substance. It’s not Star Wars without the John Williams score, the classic sound design, the life the actors breathed into lines that just don’t pop when you read them on paper.

What’s funny is I saw the original nine films as envisioned by the original writers. Let me paste it.

Ok, having a little trouble finding it but this is gold, what this guy wrote. This guy paid attention. This is what was ignored when the prequels were made.

And here’s some good points about how Lucas almost accidentally wrote a good prequel trilogy. It’s there in the bullet points and, with different execution, would be terrific. You just have a hard time seeing it through the horrible execution we got.

Yeah, I can’t find it. There was a bullet point list of what the nine movies were going to be hashed out around the time Empire finished filming. The films were going to be:

History of the Jedi, how they got made

Obi-Wan and Anakin fun time

Fall of the Jedi

ANH we got

TESB as we got

ROTJ would have been different. Leia is elected president and Han dies. Luke becomes big ol’ Jedi Master. Emperor doesn’t die yet.
7-9 were not really outlined well but Luke eventually defeats the Emperor.

“I’m on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan.”
“Princess, please. I literally just saw you fly away from the battle on this very ship like ten minutes ago.”

"You are part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor!"
same same.

So far as we knew in ANH he had a strong suspicion. It’s a bit more of that now with the context of RO.

So? Why does he have to explain everything to his prisoner?

I think the language would have been different. I’m not sure how long the trip to Tatooine would be but I’m assuming that Vader’s navigator saw the course they took and then plotted out the habitable systems along that vector. Given how short the hyperspace transit times are, the gap between the end of RO and ANH is at best hours if not minutes.

I mean it’s either going to seem weird or not. Like in the old EU Han Solo was involved in a bid to capture the Death Star plans which means he’s already had ties with the Rebel Alliance which seems to be contraindicated by ANH. Given how he values keeping his neck safe, after already getting sucked into an adventure with the Rebels before he’d be saying no no no I’m not doing this the next time it came up. This is why I generally dislike EU-style tie-ins that try to make everything too connected. Oh, Yoda knew Chewbacca? Yeah, I know, prequel canon but it feels like EU. Either it works for you or it doesn’t.

“Princess, please. I literally just saw you fly away from the battle on this very ship like ten minutes ago.”

how does his response, “you’re a member of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor,” conflict with anything in RO?

What I meant was that, watching ANH for the first time, you could imagine that she might still have a bluff worth playing here, that Vader might suspect but not have proof. The whole “holding her is dangerous” thing. They were at the point where they were ready to kick away the last supports of the old republic ideals, the last means of legal resistance against the New Order within the system. That sort of talk never came up subsequently.

I just feel that there’s a difference in context between ANH as originally seen where Vader is pretty sure he’s got her number and the context of RO where he clearly saw this ship fly away and there’s no denying it. It’s the difference between having suspicious charges on your spouse’s credit card and them keeping late hours “at the office” but nobody answers when you call and seeing them come out of an hourly hotel kissing someone goodbye. There’s “I suspect you are having an affair” and “‘Honey, it’s not what you think?’ You’re really going to run with that?”

And we’ve already discussed many of those points at length in the TLJ discussion threads about why they do actually make sense. But you don’t have to like the film, so if you don’t want to have them makes sense then you don’t have to.

It’s not a matter of me wanting something to make sense or not but it is subjective. You see supports to make you believe that there is a factual basis for believing X. I see a lack of such supports which is why I don’t believe X. Everyone else is free to say they believe it or not or it’s not even important to them. But to characterize a difference of opinion as a willful obstinance is a bit much.

The Disney Star Wars films are not akin to Michael Bay. Michael Bay movies are not only popcorn spectacle movies, but they stretch suspension of disbelief to its breaking point and beyond.

For example, in the Transformers:Dark Side of the Moon film, Leonard Nimoy’s robot character literally gives dialogue lifted straight out of Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan (“The needs of the many…”). Plus the main character, Sam, does video-game-style base-sliding under the entire width of a car; and similarly has God Mode turned on so as to survive jumping through an unbroken skyscraper window without a scratch and being violently slung around by a steel tether attached to his wrist without injuring his shoulder whatsoever.

It’s not at all the same. Disney’s Star Wars films are not popcorn movies.

Well, it’s a matter of opinion. If we stick to TLJ, there’s plenty of bad physics to go around. I know that Star Wars isn’t trying to be hard SF but it violates its own sensibilities. The horizontal bombers from the beginning make no sense since it was clearly established they already had guided weapons that could deliver strikes on targets. REDACTED

There’s the whole REDACTED

And there’s the question of how Rey goes from nobody to Force badass with zero training? I mean sure, Luke had like twenty minutes in ANH before he potted the Death Star but he was presumably doing more on his own between ANH and TESB and even if he had a few weeks on Dagobah with Yoda, he was still practicing on his own until ROTJ. Rey has come as far as she has in…what, maybe five days? It’s hard to tell how much time has passed in the two films.

SUPER REDACTED

You’re free to disagree with me and free to like TLJ but I found it to be about as problematic as a Transformer film in terms of plot holes and head scratchers.

They’d be quite happy churning out Michael Bay-style lucrative garbage until the end of time.

Lol I can’t tell if you haven’t seen any of the new Star Wars movies, or you haven’t seen any Michael Bay movies, or both.

Well, your mileage may vary. I don’t see much difference, quality-wise, between Bayformers and TFA/TLJ. There’s equal amounts of narrative incoherence and illogical, inexplicable bits that get glossed over.

The three Disney films all share the same flaws. Rogue One had a decent third act but that didn’t redeem the first two acts. They should have avoided EU-style tie-in stories and simply done a separate Rogue Squadron film. That’s what I’ve been dying for since ROTJ, more adventures set in the Galactic Civil War era but separate from the OT heroes.

That’s exactly what RO is. Yes, it does tie in to ANH, but it still stars entirely new characters.

Not exactly. It is an EU-style tie-in by which I mean it’s taking a story from the OT and telling the other side of it in a way that feels redundant. It also introduces serious head-scratcher with Vader seeing Leia’s ship escape and then confronting her in ANH.

“I’m on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan.”
“Princess, please. I literally just saw you fly away from the battle on this very ship like ten minutes ago.”

While I have some sympathy towards wanting to explain how the Empire could have a flaw in their superweapon so great that a team of engineers with like an hour to look over the plans could spot it, the way they executed the plot point was awkward. Making it be protagonist’s father and having him on mountainous rain world and circumstances conspiring for him to have a final talk with her before dying in her arms and then the plans being in a robotic tape archive and all that. It felt cumbersome and like video game logic.

What’s interesting is that there’s actual canon explanations for what that first battle to get the plans was like. It’s in the radio drama and was elaborated on a little bit more with input from Lucasfilm. I think they did reference some of this when writing RO since there’s a battle to get the plans on the ground and everyone in the raid is killed after transmitting the plans into space which are intercepted by the Tantive IV.

I just felt the first two acts had too many characters, not enough focus and tried to hang on cool visuals rather than plot beats that made sense. But that’s just me.

Actually, I was done after TFA. I still planned to eventually watch the next films but not in the theater. It would mainly be to confirm my suspicion of their being horrible. My wife dragged me to see TLJ. I’m usually fussier about movies so I didn’t want to rain on her parade if she liked it. We came out of the theater and I could see the disappointment written on her face. She has no intention of seeing IX in the theater and certainly not the (most likely) trainwreck of Han Solo.

The three Disney films all share the same flaws. Rogue One had a decent third act but that didn’t redeem the first two acts. They should have avoided EU-style tie-in stories and simply done a separate Rogue Squadron film. That’s what I’ve been dying for since ROTJ, more adventures set in the Galactic Civil War era but separate from the OT heroes.

I don’t anticipate the future films being any different. These are money-making concerns first and foremost and the films, despite all the griping from hardcore fans, remain tremendously profitable. There’s zero incentive for Disney to change anything until they start losing money. They’d be quite happy churning out Michael Bay-style lucrative garbage until the end of time. Quality isn’t something they’re optimizing for.

So I think it goes without saying that the prequels fell short of what people were anticipating.

What was your favorite concept for how the prequels should have unfolded?

What were the Clone Wars actually?

How did the Republic fall and the Empire form?

What was Palpatine’s actual backstory? (He was a puppet in ANH, ultimately becoming a Sith Lord in ROTJ)

What were the Jedi really like?

For myself, I think that the cobbled together nature of the original trilogy works for 4-6 but creates plot complications. They are easy to overlook when they’re just backstory but become hard to reconcile when actually dramatizing them. There’s two kinds of problems, the canon established in the OT and the unforced errors Lucas introduced. A canon problem is how it doesn’t make any sense to hide Anakin Skywalker’s son with his uncle under his given name. An unforced error is introducing Anakin as a child when it was clearly stated that when they met he was already the greatest pilot in the galaxy. Another unforced error is deciding that Kenobi’s desert attire, similar to what others were wearing on Tatooie, now represents Jedi robes. This would be akin to the Nazis winning WWII and the last rabbi is in hiding but still dressed like an ultra-orthodox on his way to temple.

I think the basic structure of the prequels should have been like this:
Episode 1 – thematically like ANH. Introduced to a 20-something Anakin who is a spitting image of young Luke. A triumphant adventure, bonding with Obi-Wan, feels like there’s great things in store for these two. Would be set during the last Clone War.

Episode 2 – The tragedy of Anakin Skywalker. The wars have ended and the Republic is busy losing the peace. He’s married the love of his life in the period between the first and second films. He’s becoming disenchanted with the obvious flaws of the Republic and he’s not wrong, those are serious flaws. He meets Palpatine, a sector governor during the last war who has now entered the Senate. The movie follows his disaffection from the Jedi, from Obi-Wan and his conversion to Palpatine’s point of view. Palpatine is not cackling crazy evil here, he’s presenting a very cynical and Machiavellian take on democracy and self-rule and the Republic’s rulers do little to provide a good counter argument. Palpatine becomes the leader of a populist reform movement with obvious fascist echoes and the Jedi eventually are moved to enter domestic politics and oppose it. The movie ends with the famous duel and Anakin is left for dead and he clearly must be, look at those injuries.

Episode 3 – Jedi Holocaust. You have the Jedi resistance treated as a Reichstag Fire moment and Palpatine is given emergency powers. It’s pretty much like a horror movie as the Jedi try to escape the borders of the Republic as they are hunted down. Pretty much every Jedi we meet in this film dies. Vader is introduced but is treated as a mystery. Who is this guy? He comes out of nowhere, he’s radiating the Dark Side like a reactor in meltdown and he’s slaughtering anyone who stands in his way. This mystery is hinted at when Obi-Wan survives an encounter and appears shaken, like he recognized him but it’s not confirmed because the mystery should be preserved for anyone watching the whole series in chronological order for the first time. The film would end with Palpatine being declared Emperor and the Republic becoming an Empire.

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